12 SEPTEMBER 25-OCTOBER 1, 2025 westword.com WESTWORD | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | in cyber life is going to kill you,” Roberts read off, then added, “I can’t promise I haven’t said that.” Several people in the courtroom laughed. In July 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that the State of Colorado had violated Counterman’s constitutional rights. The two dissenting votes came from Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett, who said that in certain cases prosecutors do need to prove the true intentions behind a threat – but that Counterman’s wasn’t one. “This was a very disappointing experi- ence for me because there seemed to be a little bit of an attitude that stalking isn’t a real crime, it isn’t a real threat,” Weiser says. “The justices were not empathetic to Coles.” He also believes it was unprofessional for the judges to laugh, which was offensive to both him and Whalen. For Weiser, “it was a challenge for me to hold my composure” during that moment. “There’s all these threats she was getting from someone she didn’t know,” Weiser says. “The court didn’t appreciate the grav- ity of those threats and chose to privilege the speech of the stalker, giving the stalker the same First Amendment rights that a newspaper has reporting on public affairs, and didn’t look hard at the reality that her singing career, her expression, was chilled.” The Next Stage While the case was being heard, Whalen had gone back to a Nashville studio for the fi rst time in six years and recorded “Stron- ger,” a song inspired by what she would have said to the judges about her ordeal. She was afraid of how her voice would sound, and worried that if she picked up her career, she’d be starting from scratch. “It’s not just your public career that a stalker can take from you,” Whalen says. “When you spend most of your life in a re- cording booth but you then haven’t been in one for six years, it’s intimidating.” Intimidating, and frightening in its own way. “When you’re in the entertainment business, you’re around entertainers all the time, journalists, production people,” Wha- len explains. “You’re hearing all the new stuff way before anybody else does. You’ve got inspiration at your fi ngertips all the time. I took a purposeful break from all that because I was in so much pain from losing my own performance career.” After “Stronger” came out in 2024, she began getting stronger, writing more music. She also returned to social media, but as an advocate for stalking victims. Facebook wasn’t the platform it had once been, and she instead went to Instagram to share her story one-minute-long reel at a time. Then she went to TikTok, where she talked about the Supreme Court case and the embarrass- ment of hearing the justices laugh during oral arguments. In April, the Max documentary series Hollywood Demons featured Whalen’s story along with the cases of three other entertain- ers who’d been stalked. The episode made it clear that not just big stars like Taylor Swift are stalked. It happens to up-and-coming artists like Whalen, who can’t protect them- selves as easily. Whalen’s Supreme Court case set a prec- edent for how the law deals with hateful and threatening speech online, at a time when online threats and subsequent violence are as serious a problem as ever. “It is more important than ever that we take threats of violence seriously, that law enforcement is trained how to respond to such situations,” Weiser says. “We all do our part to turn down the temperature and support one another during these challenging times.” With the Supreme Court overturning Counterman’s conviction, his record was wiped clean. Arapahoe County confi rms it no longer has any public record of his request; the rest is sealed by law. According to Whalen, Counterman has been living in Colorado since his release. This summer, Weiser asked Whalen to do a benefi t concert for his campaign for Colorado governor. It would mean re- turning to her home state and posting her performance location ahead of time, something she hadn’t done in almost a decade She would also be doing it in the state where Counterman is now a free man. But Whalen was ready. Her name, the date and the location were all written on the tickets , which were only sent to a select group and required an RSVP to get the address. At the event last month, Whalen played “Stronger” as well as new songs that she’d written during the past year. “I really hope it was just the start,” Weiser says. “Coles still loves Colorado, and that came through.” Her new music leans back into country, but she’s trying new things like songs with a Latin beat. She plans to release the music in 2026, and in the meantime to continue build- ing her profi le as a victim advocate. She has a live show listed for January 23 in Florida. “I’ve given myself the permission to take it one step at a time,” she says. “If it feels good at the step I’m on, then I’ll go to the next step.” Email the author at [email protected]. News continued from page 10 Billy Counterman after his arrest for stalking. ARAPAHOE COUNTY
